British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Friday that he is self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19.

“Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus,” he said on Twitter, posting a video message.

“I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus,” he wrote.

“Be in no doubt that I can continue thanks to the wizardry of modern technology to communicate with all my top team to lead the national fightback against coronavirus,” he added in the video message.

A Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement that Johnson, whose partner Carrie Symonds is pregnant, experienced mild symptoms on Thursday and was tested for COVID-19 on the personal advice of England’s chief medical officer.

The test was carried out in No 10 by NHS staff, the spokesperson added.

In his video message, Johnson thanked workers in Britain’s state-run National Health Service (NHS) for their efforts in battling the spread of the virus.

A total of 11,658 coronavirus cases have so far been confirmed in Britain, and 578 deaths.

Earlier this week Prince Charles, the eldest son and heir to Queen Elizabeth II, also tested positive for the virus.

The government confirmed this week that if Johnson was incapacitated, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab would temporarily assume the role of prime minister.

 AFP

Russia will halt all international flights from midnight on Friday under a government decree listing new measures against the coronavirus outbreak.

The decree published on Thursday orders aviation authorities to halt all regular and charter flights, with the exception of special flights evacuating Russian citizens from abroad.

Russia’s civil aviation agency Rosaviatsiya will halt “regular and charter air travel from Russian airports to airports of foreign states and back,” according to the decree published on the government’s website. The grounding starts at midnight Friday, or 2100 GMT Thursday.

The decree said that flights authorised by the Russian government would be exempt from the rule. The new measures do not apply to domestic flights within Russia.

The government said Russians who were unable to return due to restrictions imposed by countries they are in should take measures to stay safe.

The decree also called on the finance ministry to allocate funds to repatriate Russians, adding that returnees would be subject to health checks and a two-week quarantine.

Russia, which has reported 658 cases of the coronavirus and announced two COVID-19 related deaths Wednesday, already closed its borders to foreigners last week.

Earlier in March, Russia limited flights to and from the European Union.

Source:  AFP

The coronavirus pandemic is threatening the entire human race, the United Nations warned Wednesday as it launched a humanitarian response plan featuring an appeal for $2 billion to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

“COVID-19 is threatening the whole of humanity -– and the whole of humanity must fight back,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in announcing the initiative.

“Global action and solidarity are crucial. Individual country responses are not going to be enough.”

Just last week, as the novel coronavirus spread to more and more countries, killing thousands and infecting many more, Guterres warned that unless the world came together to curb the spread, millions of people could die.

The plan “aims to enable us to fight the virus in the world’s poorest countries, and address the needs of the most vulnerable people, especially women and children, older people, and those with disabilities or chronic illness,” said Guterres.

If fully funded, “it will save many lives and arm humanitarian agencies and NGOs with laboratory supplies for testing, and with medical equipment to treat the sick while protecting health care workers,” he added.

The amount of money sought by the plan is small compared to the $2 trillion that the US Congress is poised to approve as a rescue effort for devastated American consumers, companies and hospitals as the world’s largest economy grinds to a sudden halt.

– Two scenarios –

The UN plan is designed to last from April to December — suggesting the world body does not see the health crisis abating any time soon.

The exact total of $2.012 billion is supposed to flow in in response to appeals that various UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme, have already made.

Guterres said that in parallel, humanitarian aid provided yearly by member states to help 100 million people around the world must continue.

Otherwise, he said, the coronavirus pandemic could lead to rampant outbreaks of other diseases such as cholera and measles, as well as higher levels of malnutrition.

“This is the moment to step up for the vulnerable,” Guterres said.

As spelled out in an 80-page booklet, the UN plan will be carried out by UN agencies that work directly with non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

It will be coordinated by the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Mark Lowcock of Britain.

The money will be used for a variety of purposes: to set up hand-washing facilities in refugee camps, launch public awareness campaigns and establish humanitarian air shuttles with Africa, Asia and Latin America, the UN says.

The exact needs of some countries are still being identified.

The plan names 20 or so as deserving top priority for aid, including some enduring war or some degree of conflict, such as Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Yemen, Venezuela and Ukraine.

But countries such as Iran and North Korea are also analyzed in the booklet.

The plan foresees two general scenarios as to how the pandemic might evolve.

Under the first, the pandemic is brought under control relatively quickly as its rate of spread slows over the course of three or four months. This, it says, would allow for a relatively swift recovery in terms of public health and the economy.

But under the second model, the pandemic spreads quickly in countries that are poor or developing, mainly in Africa, Asia and parts of the Americas.

“This leads to longer periods of closed borders and limited freedom of movement, further contributing to a global slowdown that is already under way,” said the UN.

Source: AFP

Veteran Afro-jazz star Manu Dibango died on Tuesday after contracting the coronavirus, his music publisher told AFP.

The 86-year-old Cameroonian, best known for the 1972 hit “Soul Makossa”, is one of the first worldwide stars to die as a result of COVID-19.

“He died early this morning in a hospital in the Paris region,” his music publisher Thierry Durepaire said.

Dibango arrived in Marseilles in 1949 as a teenager and was made Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 2010.

He maintained his energy and love for live performance that defined his 60-year career with a 2019 tour with Symphonic Safari, mixing jazz and classical music. 

Pioneer 

A message on his official Facebook page confirmed that his death had come after he contracted COVID-19.

“His funeral service will be held in strict privacy, and a tribute to his memory will be organized when possible,” the message said.

The saxophonist was one of the pioneers of Afro jazz and also fused funk with traditional Cameroonian music.

In 2009, he accused Michael Jackson of borrowing one of his hooks for two songs on the legendary “Thriller” album.

Jackson settled out of court.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Iran’s supreme leader refused US assistance on Sunday to fight the new coronavirus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be man-made by America.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments come as Iran faces crushing US sanctions blocking the country from selling its crude oil and accessing international financial markets.

But while Iranian civilian officials in recent days have increasingly criticized those sanctions, 80-year-old Khamenei instead chose to traffic in the same conspiracy theory increasingly used by Chinese officials about the new virus to deflect blame for the pandemic.

“I do not know how real this accusation is but when it exists, who in their right mind would trust you to bring them medication?” Khamenei said. “Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more.”

He also alleged without offering any evidence that the virus “is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians which they have obtained through different means.”

“You might send people as doctors and therapists, maybe they would want to come here and see the effect of the poison they have produced in person,” he said.

No scientific proof

There is no scientific proof offered anywhere in the world to support Khamenei’s comments.

However, his comments come after Chinese government spokesman Lijian Zhao tweeted earlier this month that it “might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe(s) us an explanation!”

Lijian likewise offered no evidence to support his claim, which saw the U.S. State Department summon China’s ambassador to complain.

Wuhan is the Chinese city where the first cases of the disease were detected in December. In recent days, the Trump administration has increasingly referred to the virus as the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus, while the World Health Organization used the term COVID-19 to describe the illness the virus causes. Even a U.S. senator from Arkansas has trafficked in the unfounded conspiracy theory it was a man-made Chinese bioweapon.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus.

Scientists have not yet determined exactly how the new coronavirus first infected people. Evidence suggests it originated in bats, which infected another animal that spread it to people at a market in Wuhan. The now-shuttered Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market advertised dozens of species such as giant salamanders, baby crocodiles and raccoon dogs that were often referred to as wildlife, even when they were farmed.

An article published last week in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Medicine similarly said it was “improbable” that the virus “emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”

Khamenei made the comments in a speech in Tehran broadcast live Sunday across Iran marking Nowruz, the Persian New Year. He had called off his usual speech at Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad over the virus outbreak.

His comments come as Iran has over 21,600 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus amid 1,685 reported deaths, according to government figures released Sunday.

Support for conspiracy theories

Iran is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the new virus. Across the Middle East, Iran represents eight of 10 cases of the virus and those leaving the Islamic Republic have carried the virus to other countries.

Iranian officials have criticized US offers of aid during the virus crisis as being disingenuous. They have accused the Trump administration of wanting to capitalise on its “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran since withdrawing from the nuclear deal in May 2018. However, the US has directly offered the Islamic Republic aid in the past despite decades of enmity, like during the devastating Bam earthquake of 2003.

Reassigning blame could be helpful to Iran’s government, which faced widespread public anger after denying for days it shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people. Widespread economic problems as well has seen mass demonstrations in recent years that saw hundreds reportedly killed.

Iranian hard-liners have supported conspiracy theories in the past when it suited their interests. Following the September 11 attacks, some publicly doubted al-Qaida’s role and state TV promoting the unfounded conspiracy theory that the Americans blew up the building themselves.

Former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad similarly raised doubt about the September 11 attack, calling it a “big lie,” while also describing the Holocaust as a “myth.”

Meanwhile on Sunday, Iran imposed a two-week closure on major shopping malls and centers across the country to prevent spreading the virus. Pharmacies, supermarkets, groceries and bakeries will remain open.

In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom said its armed forces are now taking part in combating the virus, setting up mobile hospitals in various cities.

And, in Kuwait, authorities have instituted a nightly curfew from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m., warning violators face up to three years in prison and fines of $32,000 if arrested and convicted.

Source: AP

US President Donald Trump viciously attacked an NBC News reporter after he asked Trump what his message was to Americans who were afraid the coronavirus pandemic is spreading across the country.

The extraordinary exchange, which occurred on Friday at the White House’s daily coronavirus task force briefing, began when NBC News reporter Peter Alexander asked Trump whether he was giving Americans “false hope” by touting unproven drugs for treating Covid-19.

Trump has repeatedly used the term “fake news” to cast doubt on critical media reports about his administration, often without providing any evidence to support his case.

“What do you say to Americans, who are watching you right now, who are scared?” Alexander asked. The reporter cited the latest pandemic statistics showing thousands of Americans are now infected and millions are scared.

Erupting in anger, Trump unleashed a tirade: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.”

Trump continued by blasting NBC News and its parent company, Comcast.

“You’re doing sensationalism,” Trump charged. “And the same with NBC and Comcast. I don’t call it Comcast. I call it ‘Con-Cast.'”

Moments later, Kaitlan Collins, a White House correspondent for CNN, asked Trump if it was appropriate to embark on tirades against members of the news media during a public health crisis.

Trump defended his verbal assault on Alexander, saying he’s “not a good journalist” and launching into another rant against him.

“Coming together is much harder when we have dishonest journalists,” Trump said.

At Thursday’s coronavirus press briefing, Trump smeared The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. “They’re very dishonest,” Trump said.

About 60 percent of Americans are now ‘very’ or ‘somewhat worried’ they or a family member will be exposed to the coronavirus, up from 36 percent in February, while confidence in the government’s ability to respond has fallen sharply, a Gallup poll released on Monday showed.

As of Saturday morning, at least 19,624 people across the US have tested positive for the coronavirus, and 241 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Globally, over 275,000 people have now been confirmed with the virus, while nearly 11,400 have died.

Sick people across the US say they are being denied the coronavirus test, as American states scramble to slow the spread of COVID-19 and stop hospitals from being overwhelmed with a surge in critically ill patients.

The former Surgeon General of the United States warned last week that America’s top medical centers are suffering from a severe shortage of coronavirus testing supplies and are being forced to turn away potential patients amid the fast-spreading pandemic.

Source: Presstv

California’s governor on Thursday issued an unprecedented statewide “stay at home order” directing the state’s 40 million residents to hunker down in their homes for the foreseeable future in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s directive, effective immediately, marks the largest and most sweeping government clampdown yet in the worsening public health crisis brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak, which he predicted could infect more than half the state within eight weeks.

“We are confident the people of California will abide by it, they will meet this moment,” Newsom, a Democrat in his first term as governor of the nation’s most populous state, told a late-afternoon news briefing from the state capital in Sacramento.

“They’ll step up as they have over the last number of weeks to protect themselves, to protect their families and to protect the broader community in this great state and the world we reside in,” he said.

Newsom called the order essential in light of modeling by experts that showed roughly 56 percent of the state’s residents, or 25 million people, would contract the respiratory illness in the next eight weeks. Such numbers would require nearly 20,000 more hospital beds than the state could provide.

Already more than 1,000 Californians have been confirmed as infected and 18 have died, the third largest death toll in the United States behind only Washington state and New York.

Newsom said exceptions to the stay-at-home rule would be granted for residents to make trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors and laundromats, and workers in “critical infrastructure sectors.”

The governor did not give an end date for the order but suggested it would last for at least eight weeks.

‘Social pressure’

Newsom was also vague about enforcement, saying he expected Californians would bend to “social pressure” on their own.

The announcement caught many in the state by surprise and drew swift criticism from U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who told Fox News Channel he was unhappy the governor did not consult with lawmakers in Washington.

“We do think there was an ability to do this without shutting down the entire state. I hope he consulted with a lot of experts before he just made this decision,” McCarthy told Fox.

Newsom said during the news conference he had discussed the matter with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from Northern California.

Earlier on Thursday the governor asked President Donald Trump to send a U.S. Navy hospital ship to the port of Los Angeles “immediately” as the state braces for the expected surge in the number of coronavirus cases.

Trump has said he would deploy two Navy hospital ships, one to each coast, but defense officials have said the vessels were not yet ready to take on patients.

(REUTERS)

The Trump administration’s response to the novel coronavirus has been characterized by misinformation, missteps and bureaucratic infighting. President Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus, but will he pass the leadership test as new cases of the highly-contagious respiratory disease pop up across the United States?

While Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus hitting the American shores and spreading throughout the country, he is certainly responsible for grave errors that critics say could even cost him his presidency.

“These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security,” Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at Ethics & Public Policy Center, wrote for The Atlantic.

President Trump has sent mixed messages on the outbreak in the US, going out of his way to deny evidence and brush aside the threat. He has also shrugged off blame for any mistakes his administration has made that have hampered efforts to contain and mitigate the spread of the virus that has killed dozens of people across the nation.

Since taking office, Trump has taken steps that experts have warned would prove disastrous during a public health crisis.He has shut down the National Security Council’s entire global health security unit, ignored an expert panel’s warning that the US is unprepared to deal with a pandemic and proposed budget cuts for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The most recent mistakes include the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, cutting personnel from pandemic preparedness,the decision to test too few people for the coronavirus and the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the CDC.

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said Friday when asked whether he took responsibility for the inadequate number of COVID-19 tests in the US. He instead blamed the testing failures on “rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time.”

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,acknowledged in congressional testimony early in the week that America is still not providing adequate testing for the coronavirus.

“The idea of anybody getting [testing] easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. I think it should be, but we’re not,”Fauci said.

Trump on Friday declared an emergency, unblocking tens of billions of dollars in federal aid. The administration has also negotiated a spending bill with Congress to provide assistance to the economy during the crisis.

However, the measure has proven too little too late. States across the country have largely been left on their own as they struggle to help their citizens.

For weeks, Trump and his team had had been too preoccupied by the potential political damage of an outbreak in an election year to acknowledge the true scale of the disaster. The president repeatedly contradicted health officials, claiming that the virus was contained in the US when it was actually spreading. He had also called the outbreak a Democratic “hoax” designed to hurt his reelection chances.

“They’ve simply lost time they can’t make up. You can’t get back six weeks of blindness,” Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped oversee the international response to Ebola during the Obama administration, told The Washington Post.

“To the extent that there’s someone to blame here, the blame is on poor, chaotic management from the White House and failure to acknowledge the big picture,” said Konyndyk, who is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

So far none of President Trump’s disastrous policy decisions have caught up on him like his failure on the coronavirus. He has largely escaped the fallout from his trade war with China because the US economy was strong. He walked away from a critical global climate accord relatively unharmed because global warming happens slowly.

“But now, in the face of a global health threat that is immediate and all around us—and requires, more than anything, a coordinated global response—Trump finds that his errors are flying back in his face like clown pies almost every time he opens his mouth,”  wrote Michael Hirsh for the Foreign Policy magazine.

“All the defining attributes of his presidency—his ‘America First’ arrogance, his us-versus-them pettiness toward the rest of the world, his obvious desire for American self-isolation—are suddenly working against him. Trump had very little credibility before; it appears to be all but shot now,” Hirsh said.

Financial markets have suffered their worst losses since the 1987 stock market crash, wiping out nearly three years of economic gains. As the pandemic threatens to derail the US economy, reports say President Trump grows more worried about his reelection chances.

“The president, enraged for having been unmasked, will become more desperate, more embittered, more unhinged. He knows nothing will be the same. His administration may stagger on, but it will be only a hollow shell. The Trump presidency is over,” Wehner argued in his piece.

Culled from Presstv

The spread of the new coronavirus around the world is also taking a toll on international diplomacy at the United Nations (UN) in New York, where mandatory social distancing has caused major disruptions to routine work.

Restrictions at the UN headquarters in downtown Manhattan include mandatory work from home for the majority of the 3,000 employees, and reduced physical participation for diplomats at the Security Council. Several sessions of the Council in the coming week have also been canceled.

The UN Secretariat oversees nearly 100,000 peace-keeping forces at conflict zones around the world, and employees and diplomats routinely discuss a wide variety of world issues at small and large meetings. Significantly reduced staff at the UN offices would therefore translate to sweeping disruptions to work.

“Everything gets a bit more complicated,” said one diplomat working from home, according to AFP, which did not reveal the diplomat’s name.

“We come, but there are fewer and fewer meetings, and consensus is going to be more difficult to achieve,” said one ambassador, whose name was also not mentioned.

On Thursday, a Philippine diplomat tested positive for the new virus, becoming the first case of infection in the UN community and prompting the closing of the Philippines’ mission.

A day later, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres canceled a trip to Africa and required all non-essential employees to telework until April 12.

“The United Nations is facing one of the biggest challenges in our history,” Guterres wrote in a letter to all UN employees obtained by AFP, adding that the virus was having “a major impact on us and our work.”

Diplomatic delegations at the 15-member Security Council should include no more than three people. And a recent attempt to hold a meeting of the Council by teleconference also failed due to technological shortcomings.

Self-service in the cafeterias in the building has also been recently banned.

The near-empty hallways of the vast complex have the feel of a “ghost town,” according to one guard at a checkpoint in the building.

The new virus from the coronavirus family first emerged in China’s Wuhan City in December last year. Since then, it has spread across the world, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global pandemic.

Source: Presstv

A barrage of rockets hit a base housing U.S. and other coalition troops north of Baghdad, Iraqi security officials said Saturday, just days after a similar attack killed three servicemen, including two Americans.

At least two Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the attack at Camp Taji, according to the Iraqi officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The officials said over a dozen rockets landed inside the base. Some struck the area where coalition forces are based, while others fell on a runway used by Iraqi forces.

The was no immediate comment from the coalition regarding Saturday’s attack.

The attack was unusual because it occurred during the day. Previous assaults on military bases housing U.S. troops typically occurred at night.

The previous rocket attack against Camp Taji on Wednesday also killed a British serviceman. It prompted American airstrikes Friday against what U.S. officials said were mainly weapons facilities belonging to Kataib Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group believed to be responsible.

However, Iraq’s military said those airstrikes killed five security force members and a civilian, while wounding five fighters from the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella organization including an array of militias, including some Iran-backed groups.

Iran-backed Shiite militia groups vowed to exact revenge for Friday’s U.S. strikes, signalling another cycle of tit-for-tat violence between Washington and Tehran that could play out inside Iraq.

America’s killing of Iraqi security forces might also give Iran-backed militia groups more reason to stage counterattacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, analysts said.

“We can’t forget that the PMF is a recognized entity within the Iraqi security forces; they aren’t isolated from the security forces and often are co-located on the same bases or use the same facilities,” said Sajad Jiyad, a researcher and former managing director of the Bayan Center, a Baghdad-based think tank.

“Now the (Iran-backed) groups who supported the initial strike in Taji, who were the most outspoken, feel obliged, authorized, maybe even legitimized to respond, ostensibly to protect Iraqi sovereignty but really to keep the pressure up on Americans,” he added.

“There are no red lines anymore,” Jiyad said.

Wednesday’s attack on Camp Taji was the deadliest to target U.S. troops in Iraq since a late December rocket attack on an Iraqi base, which killed a U.S. contractor. That attack set in motion a series of attacks that brought Iraq to the brink of war.

After the contractor was killed, America launched airstrikes targeting Kataib Hezbollah, which in turn led to protests at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

A U.S. drone strike in Baghdad then killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a top commander responsible for expeditionary operations across the wider Mideast. Iran struck back with a ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq, the Islamic Republic’s most direct assault on America since the 1979 seizing of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The U.S. and Iran stepped back from further attacks after the Soleimani incident. A senior U.S. official said in late January, when U.S.-Iran tensions had cooled, that the killing of Americans constituted a red line that could spark more violence.

(AP)